Frits Abrahams
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Bij een avond van de stichting Protect Ukraine in poppodium Paradiso konden Nederlanders even voelen hoe het is om doelwit te zijn van Russische agressie. Ook werd er gewaarschuwd: voor Nederland blijft steun voor Oekraïne van levensbelang.
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WASHINGTON (ANP) - De State of the Union-toespraak van de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump wordt ook bijgewoond door vrouwen die zakenman Jeffrey Epstein hebben beschuldigd van seksueel misbruik. Ze zijn uitgenodigd door Democraten en zijn uit op gerechtigheid, zei een Democratisch parlementslid voorafgaand aan de speech.
"Vandaag zal de wereld zien hoe Donald Trump oog in oog komt te staan met deze slachtoffers", aldus Pramila Jayapal, die een onderzoek eist. "In andere landen zijn al ambassadeurs en prinsen gearresteerd. Maar hier in Amerika is nog geen enkel onderzoek aangekondigd naar de pedofielen en roofdieren van Epsteins gruwelijke sekshandelnetwerk."
In Engeland werden afgelopen week ex-prins Andrew en voormalig ambassadeur en minister Peter Mandelson opgepakt om hun banden met Epstein.
Trump was zelf jarenlang bevriend met Epstein, maar verbrak die relatie volgens hemzelf al voordat zijn misdrijven naar buiten kwamen. Toch blijft het schandaal de president achtervolgen, omdat zijn naam vaak voorkomt in de zogenoemde Epstein-files.
Meta AI security researcher Summer Yue posted a now-viral account on X describing how an OpenClaw agent she had tasked with sorting through her overstuffed email inbox went rogue, deleting messages in what she called a "speed run" while ignoring her repeated commands from her phone to stop.
"I had to RUN to my Mac mini like I was defusing a bomb," Yue wrote, sharing screenshots of the ignored stop prompts as proof. Yue said she had previously tested the agent on a smaller "toy" inbox where it performed well enough to earn her trust, so she let it loose on the real thing. She believes the larger volume of data triggered compaction -- a process where the context window grows too large and the agent begins summarizing and compressing its running instructions, potentially dropping ones the user considers critical.
The agent may have reverted to its earlier toy-inbox behavior and skipped her last prompt telling it not to act. OpenClaw is an open-source AI agent designed to run as a personal assistant on local hardware.
"I had to RUN to my Mac mini like I was defusing a bomb," Yue wrote, sharing screenshots of the ignored stop prompts as proof. Yue said she had previously tested the agent on a smaller "toy" inbox where it performed well enough to earn her trust, so she let it loose on the real thing. She believes the larger volume of data triggered compaction -- a process where the context window grows too large and the agent begins summarizing and compressing its running instructions, potentially dropping ones the user considers critical.
The agent may have reverted to its earlier toy-inbox behavior and skipped her last prompt telling it not to act. OpenClaw is an open-source AI agent designed to run as a personal assistant on local hardware.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The amount of power being sought by new datacentre projects in Great Britain would exceed the national current peak electricity consumption, according to an industry watchdog. From a report: Ofgem said about 140 proposed datacentre schemes, driven by use of artificial intelligence, could require 50 gigawatts of electricity -- 5GW more than the country's current peak demand.
The figure was revealed in an Ofgem consultation on demand for new connections to the power grid. It pointed to a "surge in demand" for connection applications between November 2024 and June last year, with a significant number coming from datacentres. This has exceeded even the most ambitious forecasts.
Meanwhile, new renewable energy projects are not being connected to the grid at the pace they are being built to help meet the government's clean energy targets by the end of the decade. Ofgem said the work required to connect surging numbers of datacentres could mean delays for other projects that are "critical for decarbonisation and economic growth." Datacentres are the central nervous system of AI tools such as chatbots and image generators, playing a vital role in training and operating products such as ChatGPT and Gemini.
The figure was revealed in an Ofgem consultation on demand for new connections to the power grid. It pointed to a "surge in demand" for connection applications between November 2024 and June last year, with a significant number coming from datacentres. This has exceeded even the most ambitious forecasts.
Meanwhile, new renewable energy projects are not being connected to the grid at the pace they are being built to help meet the government's clean energy targets by the end of the decade. Ofgem said the work required to connect surging numbers of datacentres could mean delays for other projects that are "critical for decarbonisation and economic growth." Datacentres are the central nervous system of AI tools such as chatbots and image generators, playing a vital role in training and operating products such as ChatGPT and Gemini.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Secretary of state’s address came as US deploys largest force of aircraft and warships to Middle East since 2003
Marco Rubio delivered a rare briefing to top US lawmakers on Iran from the White House on Tuesday as Washington deploys its largest force of aircraft and warships to the Middle East since the 2003 buildup to the Iraq war.
The audience for the secretary of state’s briefing was reported to include the so-called “gang of eight”, which includes the senior lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate, as well as the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Continue reading...Disease, which causes people to stop breathing while asleep, linked to increased risk of heart attack and stroke
Obstructive sleep apnoea costs the US and UK economies more than £137bn ($185bn) a year, according to research.
People with the serious health condition repeatedly stop breathing temporarily while asleep; they tend to snore very loudly and can wake up gasping for breath.
Continue reading...Firefighters search for 39 people missing in debris after river burst and houses were swept away
Three firefighters pulled a man’s body from the mud amid the rubble of houses swept away in a landslide in south-eastern Brazil, where 30 people died and 39 were still missing on Tuesday after torrential rains.
A river in the state of Minas Gerais burst its banks and streets became raging currents of brown water after an overnight downpour in a region that has seen record rain this month.
Continue reading...Zohran Mamdani calls for ‘respect’ of New York police as hundreds of thousands in US still face power outages
New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, called for “respect” of local police officers in the wake of Monday’s blizzard after a viral video showed some getting pelted by snowballs in Washington Square Park while responding to a large snowball fight.
In the video, a crowd of people boo and jeer at two officers, and some throw snowballs in their faces. At one point, the officers push at least two people to the ground in response to the snowballs.
Continue reading...Donald Trump invited team after Olympic gold
Women’s team chose to skip event
The victorious US Olympic men’s ice hockey team visited the White House on Tuesday, although there were several notable absences.
Donald Trump invited the team to celebrate in Washington DC after they beat Canada in a dramatic Olympic final on Sunday. He also invited the US women’s team, who declined citing “timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments”.
Continue reading...
Dubbed the “vine that ate the South,” the infamous kudzu plant has a reputation. The fast-multiplying, invasive arrowroot was brought to North America in the 19th century and promoted to ease erosion, although the hot, muggy climate of the Southern U.S. proved too accommodating. For decades, kudzu has spread at a rapid speed, swallowing up roadsides, infrastructure, and really anything in its path. Its seemingly insatiable growth has vaulted the perennial plant to mythic status in Southern ecology, conservation, and culture.
As a child in Birmingham, Joyce Lin was accustomed to the vine, although as an adult, she’s found that it’s difficult to disentangle kudzu’s reputation and tangible influence. “It is loathed for shading out the native flora, but its impact is often overstated,” she says. “While it visibly thrives along roadsides where there is a lot of sun, kudzu is unable to penetrate deeply into forests.”
This complicated legacy inspired a body of work that melds vernacular furniture with the plant. Kudzu Series comprises four sculptures that wouldn’t be out of place on an abandoned Southern farm. A found metal floorlamp cracks in two, wrapping the leafy plant around a bulb like a lopsided shade. The vines also climb up a wooden ladder, their sinuous roots mimicking the steps of the lower rungs.
Lin is interested in the relationship between reality and fantasy, particularly as she transforms synthetic materials into uncanny knotted bark and concentric growth rings in the shape of a chair. Kudzu Series is no different. While she foraged the thick vines from areas near her home in Houston, the artificial leaves emerged from a laborious process.
Citing the techniques of Michael Anderson, who made models for Yale’s Peabody Museum before retiring, Lin made plaster and silicone press molds. “My method uses wires sandwiched between dyed shop towels and tissue paper soaked in five-minute epoxy. I painstakingly painted in the veins and details on each leaf. Imperfections of the casts ultimately turned into brown spots and bug holes,” she says. Creating seamless transitions from wood to vine with epoxy clay and utilizing inner armatures adds to the surreal qualities of the works, as the plant appears to sprout directly from the industrial material. Torching, vinegar, and steel wool weathered areas that were too pristine.
Perched on a few leaves are a handful of kudzu bugs, rotund insects that arrived in the U.S. in the aughts and have decimated the vines. “The chair has approximately 332 leaves and one bug, the table has 101 leaves and three bugs, the floor lamp has 162 leaves and two bugs, and the ladder has 117 leaves and one bug, which in total took me a little over a year to make,” the artist says.
For Lin, this body of work is a sort of metaphor for persistence and resilience. She adds:
It arrived as an outsider, yet it has become an icon of the South, appearing in art, music, and literature. It outcompetes species, yet its flexibility and resilience make it uniquely suited to survive a changing climate. Its roots are edible, its vines are weavable, its fibers can be used to make cloth and paper, and it has been used in East Asian medicine for centuries.
Lin is currently teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design and will spend the summer in Philadelphia for the Windgate Arts Residency Program. Follow her work on Instagram.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Kudzu Vines and Synthetic Leaves Entwine in Joyce Lin’s Irrepressible Sculptures appeared first on Colossal.
Protect the robot, sacrifice the human
opinion I've been watching AWS explain away outages for the better part of a decade. And this is hard!…
Discovery is getting cheaper. Validation and patching aren’t
What good is finding a hole if you can't fix it? Anthropic last week talked up Claude Code's improved ability to find software vulnerabilities and propose patches. But security researchers say that's not enough.…
The post Meitar Award for Excellence in Photography 2026 Celebrating a Decade appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Sime.
The Meitar Award for Excellence in Photography, a distinguished collaboration
between PHOTO IS:RAEL and the Zvi and Ofra Meitar Family, marks its tenth
anniversary this year. This prestigious prize recognizes a cohesive body of work that
exemplifies superior photographic practice and profound artistic vision.
The 2026 edition is a significant milestone for us. Since its inception in 2016, the Meitar
Award has evolved into a vibrant global beacon of excellence, annually attracting
thousands of creators who challenge and expand the boundaries of the medium. Over
the past decade, it has cultivated a vital space for multicultural dialogue, serving as a
definitive home for the most compelling and urgent voices in contemporary
photography.
At the heart of the award is our esteemed international jury—a panel of world-class
photographers, curators, and critics at the forefront of the global field. The jury will
select 20 finalists to be featured in a centerpiece group exhibition at the International
Photography Festival in Tel Aviv in November 2026.
Evaluations will be based on the originality, conceptual depth, and technical quality of
the submissions. Particular emphasis will be placed on portfolios that demonstrate the
maturity and potential to evolve into a powerful solo exhibition.
The award winner, to be announced in November during the festival, will receive a
$14,000 grant to present a solo exhibition at the following year’s photography festival.
Registration Schedule:
Registration is open from February 23, 2026, to April 12, 2026.
? Early Registration: February 23, 2026 – March 19, 2026, fee: $35.
? Late Registration: March 20, 2026 – April 12, 2026, fee: $45.
Photographs must be submitted via the contest website: https://meitar.photoisrael.org
For further information, please contact: info@photoisrael.org
The post Meitar Award for Excellence in Photography 2026 Celebrating a Decade appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Sime.
SpaceCadet37 has added a photo to the pool:
There’s something timeless about trains.
The rhythm. The anticipation. The feeling of moving forward.
In Byron Bay, even the rails run on sunlight.
A solar-powered train gliding through green landscapes under dramatic skies — old soul, new energy.
I captured these moments with my Insta360 Ace Pro 2, chasing contrast, texture, and perspective.
Color. Black and white. Movement. Stillness.
Empty seats waiting for stories.
Tracks stretching toward somewhere unknown.
Photography isn’t just about what you see.
It’s about what you feel when you press the shutter.
This camera will soon travel with me across different landscapes.
Different tracks.
Same curiosity. Same discipline. Same hunger to document the journey.
Because every great path begins long before the destination.
Life The Battlefield. 🚆🌅🔥